INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER âą A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
âHard to put down, harder to forget.â â Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author
White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences⊠Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didnât write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian Americanâin this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athenaâs a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athenaâs death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athenaâs just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athenaâs novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Songâcomplete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesnât this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? Thatâs what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June canât get away from Athenaâs shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring Juneâs (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuangâs novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
Aurakin
2024-09-15
Extremt överskattad bok. Viktiga budskap kring rasism och vÀlgrundad kritik mot hur det fungerar inom bokindustrin, men som roman var det hÀr vÀldigt undermÄligt. Kuang Àr i min mening inte nÄgon bra berÀttare, och har hittills aldrig lyckats fÄnga mig med nÄgon av hennes karaktÀrer. Att lyssna pÄ den hÀr ljudboken kÀndes som att spendera timmar pÄ att lÀsa kommentarsfÀlt i sociala medier, och huvudkaraktÀren var inte alls "morally grey" som hon sÄlts in som, utan bara endimensionell och egocentrerad. Funderade ÀndÄ ett tag pÄ om boken var tillrÀckligt vÀlskriven för att fÄ 3 stjÀrnor, "den har ju ÀndÄ ett bra budskap nÄnstans i grunden". Men sÄ kom det fÄniga slutet...
Anna
2024-07-27
Otroligt intressant tema och spÀnnande uppbyggnad. TyvÀrr lite platt slut, annars bra!
Matilda
2024-03-17
I was really not planning on reading this, as the plotline with an author stealing her dead friend's manuscript and publishing it as her own felt very stressful to me. But as the positive reviews kept on piling up, I thought I would give it a try after all. And I'm very happy I did! This book is well-written, fast-paced, and entertaining. I especially liked that it posed many interesting questions around the publishing industry - how certain authors (arbitrarily) deemed to have commercial potential get so much attention, while many other writers are left to fend for themselves - and how we approach issues around diversity, representation, and explotation/appropriation. I also enjoyed how the main character throughout the book try to make peace with her friendship with the woman she stole the manuscript from, and how the book allowed it to be a complex relationship where memories from the past showed that they both supported and used each other at times. But sometimes those relationships are the hardest to figure out. Or as said in the book: "Only the dead can be so constantly present." [3.5 â]